The Zeitgeist Movement / Peter Joseph PART 2, "Boom & Bust" March 14th 2014

Money: It's been around for thousands
of years in one form or another.

In fact, according to economic
historian David Graeber,

historical records in ancient
Mesopotamia around 3200 BC

show a well developed system of money
and a complex credit system as well.

So, naturally, most of us see money as
a necessity and a sign of civilization,

but not Peter Joseph,
he sees capitalism as a failure,

and wants to return to a time before
money and eliminate private property.

I spoke to Joseph, founder and
leading light in the Zeitgeist Movement

about his controversial view, last week,

and we heard the first
part of that interview then,

and it sparked a ton of commentary,
which we love to hear, always,

and we want to show you the second part
of our conversation with him, now.

I started off by asking Peter to explain

why he thinks our current
economic model is doomed,

and what differentiates
his view from Malthusianism.

Here is what he had to say.

Well, Malthusianism is based, again,
on that deep, dark view that

"there isn't enough to go around".

People have been saying this for
pretty much millenia. There was actually

BC historians and philosophers that were
talking about resource depletion back then;

so there is a fear attribute
that has been occurring.

Malthus, of course, said that there's
'geometric increase in population,

when more resources are provided
we get resources increasing arithmetically.'

With that, you automatically assume
you can justify the billion people starving,

but that is technically disproven because of the
"more with less ephemeralization" -

- here is a word that I suggest
people look up, coined by

the brilliant engineer, social thinker
R. Buckminster Fuller -

ephemeralization has to do with the fact that we,
as we have progressed our technology,

can do more and more and more,
with less and less and less,

and again, this is one of
the additive contradictions,

or I should say the contradiction of
the additive nature, assumed by capitalism,

once again, that says:
"We're gonna produce more and more and more

- more and more efficiency or
more and more produce -

that means we have to have more and more people
and more and more employment." Exact opposite!

Technological unemployment is the
exact result of this exponential increase

of information technology that's allowing us
to do more and more with less and less,

which is why the real true core of
the unemployment crisis on this planet,

especially in the West, is not the
state interference or anything else,

it's the fact that we're finding more
cost-efficiency with using machines

that can run 24 hours a day,
in many cases, no plant shut-downs,

no insurance and everything else;
so I hope that makes sense.

The Malthusian premise is utterly outdated
and completely wrong, by the way.

Poor populations reproduce much
faster than wealthy populations.

It has to do with education, it has to do with

a number of factors that I won't go into
but it is actually completely incorrect.

- Peter, what is the doomsday scenario
for this money-based economy,

in your opinion?

- I think that there are about 3 nails in the coffin:

There is the debt crisis, which is wholly hilarious
if you look at it in abstraction.

We have the SNP, for example,
said that by the year 2040

we're gonna have pretty much
60% of all countries insolvent.

Actually, most countries today are already
insolvent if you use the traditional standards

of credit rating agencies that
you would apply to the individual;

the United states have been
insolvent for many decades.

There's at least a couple hundred trillion dollars
in public and private debt in the world

that is literally impossible to pay back
because it's 10 to 20 times more

than the actual money in circulation on the planet.

So that's gonna be hitting the wall. Well, you know
the old phrase: it's socialism for the rich

and market correction capitalism
for the middle class and the poor.

That also applies to countries, so the United States
will continue to float on it's empire status,

along with the other first world nations
with their excessive and incredible debt,

while the other nations will be held subservient,

the world bank will come in, they will apply austerity,

which basically makes them slaves, eventually,
to the upper class of the countries,

just like it happens in the
person to person basis with third world labor,

and exploitation and sweat-shop wages,

from NIKE, for example,

because the people in those areas don't have
anything else, so they'll take 8 cents/hour.

So, the debt issue is a huge problem;
than there's the energy crisis.

The demand for energy is gonna double
within the next, I think two decades.

We also have another billion people coming.
We also have an immense water crisis,

as I mentioned before. These things,

If you wanna see real social destabilization,
let's not resolve any of these issues.

If you wanna see another world war,
let's not resolve any of these issues.

The core driver of a major, overall
doomsday scenario situation like this

will be the 3 nails in the coffin; the final one
I forgot to mention is unemployment,

which is related to technological development,

and it's called the contradiction of
capitalism by some social theorists,

and this basically means that we wanna use
cost-efficiency, we wanna save money,

we're gonna keep applying mechanized labor,
which has increased exponentially,

especially the service industry now
which has been quickly replaced

by A.I. in many different ways
and automated systems,

and eventually we're going to have to keep
moving people around the new sectors

and we're going to run out of sectors. You know

the great ludide fantasy is they assume
that there's a one to one correlation,

that technology will create jobs
as fast as it's replacing jobs.

Absolute nonsense!
The human brain can not learn and adapt

as quickly as our exponential increase in technology,

and the profit motive will be, ironically,
the thing that shuts this system down

and reduces purchasing power
due to mass global unemployment;

and what does that mean? It means
social destabilization once again.

And the final thing I'll mention,
of course in concert with these 3 issues

is the complete and utterly environmental
disregard; it was reported by

a UN affiliated agency in 2002

that we need 27 more planets
to meet demand by 2050.

27 more planets... - Wow!
- ...if we were to continue these rates of consumption.

I'll add one more thing because of the
neurotic obsession with this American Dream:

Do you have any idea what would happen
if the rest of the world actually achieved

what the United States has,
with it's incredible resource consumption

and it's incredible use of energy and everything else,
if the rest of the world achieved that,

which is what they're trying to do, which is
what China has been trying to do,

which is a completely ecological
collapse in many ways,

the entire system would continue to
disintegrate into nothing as well,

so I attack this from a few different angles,
but I'll stop there or I'll keep rambling

because it's a very exciting subject to me

and I'm very concerned
about the future of the planet.

Me as well, and you kind of touched
on this before but I want to revisit it.

Many people talk about technology creating
greater income inequality in society,

as we know; how would
you deal with that problem

in a non-monetary based society
like you propose?

I think a further description
of this new social system,

that the Zeitgeist Movement is proposing,
would need to be explained,

because inequality, it's a complex subject because,

what defines stratification? What is class?

Somebody who is very low on the socioeconomic
ladder, that's a janitor, say at a school,

might be the best softball player
on his team, in his hometown,

so class relationship and status

comes in many different forms
when it comes to human society.

The elimination, the creation
of economic equality, meaning,

the ability to create an access society

where people can have access
to everything that they need,

bypassing the hyper-acquisitive neurosis
that we've conjured up

to keep our consumption economy going, of course,

you have to have sustainable values
if you want to have a sustainable society.

I look at people who have large,
huge, enormous mansions

and two jets parked in the
front lawn, as a form of violence

against the general population because
it's unsustainable on the whole,

but that said, goes for another subject.

The core issue to me when it comes to
stratification and class relationships is that

if we really want democratic balance,

everyone in the world wants to
think that they're in a democracy

and think that their voice is heard, they want
equal participation in their society.

If you really believe in that type of idea,
then why not demand economic equality?

Why not demand the fact that yes,
everyone should have their basic needs met?

Everyone should have access;
we should create a new social order

that actually builds upon the ability
to create an access abundance,

which has not been the case, I'm sorry to say,
since before about 20 to 30 years ago.

So this is a major paradigm-shift; huge, massive!

We are able to provide for the entire species
to meet human needs and beyond,

without the need to compete and fight.

And if there's anything that
I would put forward out there

is for people to really think about that idea
as the great transition of thought,

that we can take care of everybody, we can do it
and it's gonna get better and better,

and if we only accelerated it
by not keeping the market system

and its generally inhibiting capacity
to preserve inefficiency,

to preserve scarcity which is what drives the economy,

then we can elevate to this new level.

That was film-maker and founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, Peter Joseph.